13 ridiculously tiny green things

A mountain is composed of tiny grains of earth. The ocean is made up of tiny drops of water. Even so, life is but an endless series of little details, actions, speeches, and thoughts. And the consequences whether good or bad of even the least of them are far-reaching.
~Sivananda

I have to admit, I do some bizarre shit in the name of the environment. Tiny things. Things that really don’t add up to much. Makes me feel better, though.

1. I hate straws. I almost never use them. Lids for disposable cups I’ll grab if I’m going to be in the car, but I hardly ever use straws. I typically just drink straight out of the cup.
2. I reuse packaging. This is mostly because it’s a lot cheaper just to keep the padded mailing envelopes and reuse them. Damn things are expensive.
3. I still cut the rings from the six-packs of sodas I buy. I figure it can’t hurt.
4. Since my reused packaging typically has someone else’s address written all over it, I take a scrap piece of paper, write the new address on it, and then tape it to the package.
5. I use bar soap instead of body wash or liquid hand soap to cut down on packaging. Unfortunately,this sometimes means it goes down the sink when it’s down to a nub and the cat decides it does not need to be on the counter.
6. I keep the microwave and the computer monitor unplugged when I’m not using them.
7. I got rid of the alarm clock…I use the alarm on my cell phone. Now I have a device that is plugged in a lot less of the time, and it’s one less item I have to lug around.
8. I don’t own more than one charger for anything. I have the charger the device came with and that’s it. More because chargers are expensive and I don’t feel like sorting through a big pile of them.
9. I never turn the AC on in the car. I will if it’s really hot and the cats are going somewhere, or if I have a passenger that looks like they’re about to die of heatstroke (pansies).
10. The cats’ toys are mostly wadded up balls of paper or aluminum foil, toilet paper tubes, bottlecaps, or other things that are free. I don’t have the money for cat toys, but if I did buy them, they would be handmade Kitty Titties.
11. I reuse the produce bags from the grocery store until they have holes in them or they’re just plain gross.
12. I “compost” my food waste by tossing it into the unmowed area near my apartment. My neighbors love me.
13. Used cat litter goes in old cat food bags, bags I can’t recycle, or just about anything that was destined for the trash, anyway.

Wow. You guys still do the plastic ring six-pack holder thingy in the US?

It’s been years since I saw one of those in Australia. I’m pretty sure they’ve either been banned or companies just volunatarily moved away from them. Instead, six-pack (and four-packs) are now done with cardboard. Some examples (though I couldn’t find a picture of a can six-pack, they are much the same)

You don’t see them as much anymore, I think. Most people buy sodas and whatnot in twelve-packs. The only reason I started getting six packs again is because the store-brand soda comes in better flavors in the six-packs.

The cardboard-for-six-packs is really cool, though…I wish they’d start doing it here. Aside from beer, anyway. Well, bottled beer. Now that I think of it, canned beer six-packs still have those damn rings.

I grew up with bar soap, in the stone age before shower gel and liquid hand wash was invented. Millions of plastic bottles of liquid gels/washes vs millions of soap bars wrapped in paper or in a cardboard box, was not a good trade. One of the dumber things we’ve invented in my lifetime.
maloyo